Posts Tagged ‘Networking Strategy’
Can your prospective clients contact you?
How easy do you make it for your prospective clients to contact you? Do you have a contact form on your website with direct email ? Are all your telephone numbers visible? If you are on Social Media do you have all the widgets in place connecting through? For a lot of us this seems standard practice but I have recently visited a fair few websites that don’t make it easy for me to contact them. Their telephone number is hiding in the bottom left hand corner of the page, an email address will be displayed but doesn’t link through and although they talk about following them on Twitter and Facebook again the URL doesn’t link me up. How frustrating is that?
Surprising isn’t it that so many companies have websites but omit the most crucial information.
Check your website and make sure that the following are in place:-
- Telephone number is displayed clearly – best position top right hand corner, in my opinion, it’s where I always look first.
- Have a separate tab on your site “Contact” which will have a pre-set email form where they can send you a message direct
- If you don’t have this and only show your email address then make sure that is hyper linked
- Ensure your Social Media Links actually link to the relevant sites
As I say, it might be common place for a lot of us but there are a lot of sites out there that just don’t want to be contacted – amazing! Why make it impossible for your prospective clients to contact you? What will they do? They’ll move on to the next provider they find on Google search. Now that is a missed opportunity.
Debra Ellis wrote about this recently too. Note: If you are not already registered on The Social Customer you will need to sign up to read the report – well worth it.
Take a moment now and check your website is working for you.
Do you work for love or money?
I am an avid fan of Seth Godin – I look forward to reading his daily blogs. Without fail there is one every day! Some of them are a little obtuse for me, some go way over my head, but I check in every day to see what words of wisdom he has compiled for the day. Today his blog is Reasons to Work
Undoubtedly we all work to earn money – don’t we? If it wasn’t to earn money then surely that comes under the banner of being a “hobby”. How do you separate the two?
Here are my views on Seth’s 8 points – what are yours?
- For the money - Most definitely
- To be challenged - Running your own business is always going to be a challenge however with it being your own business you will only get out of it what you put in.
- For the pleasure/calling of doing the work - I enjoy my work, I can choose what I want to do and what I don’t.
- For the impact it makes on the world - I doubt anything I do has an impact on the world, but hopefully I do help others run their businesses a little smoother.
- For the reputation you build in the community - I like to think I help build communities on social networks. Interacting with different people helps stimulate the brain. Different ideas, varying degrees of application enhance a stronger on line community.
- To solve interesting problems - I do like solving problems, looking for applications that will make any business run smoother.
- To be part of a group and to experience the mission - I have always worked on my own – however when I set up On The Go I had to go networking. In doing so became part of many groups and enjoy meeting people.
- To be appreciated - If you work right then appreciation will come.
I am just reading The E Myth by Michael E Gerber. I have only just started it but already I can see where I have gone wrong over the past 3 years. That reminds me – it will be three years on the 5th December when I set up On The Go – time flies!
Let me know your reasons – are they similar to mine?
The power of social media – stop thinking 'campaigns' and start thinking 'conversations' – Part Two
In my last blog I talked about why using social networking sites can be such powerful business tools and why thinking in terms of ‘conversations’ rather than ‘campaigns’ is so important. I also looked at some of the most influential social networking sites on the market today, in particular Twitter and LinkedIn.
In this blog I want to start building on these themes and explore two more important social network sites that should be considered as part of your overall business profile raising strategy. These are Facebook and Tube Mogul.
The rise of Facebook has been phenomenal by any standard and despite some negative publicity relating to parental control and occasional misuse; the site owners have recently tightened up their act and made Facebook an extremely powerful tool. Incredibly, if Facebook were a country it would be the 8th most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan with approximately five billion minutes spent by users on Facebook every day.
Until very recently I tended to view Facebook as purely a ‘social’ site, using it mainly as a way of keeping in touch with my son who is overseas, and the thought of using it for business purposes never occurred to me. However, Facebook is actually more versatile than you might think and there are some useful features for business and professional purposes that should be considered as part of any overall social networking strategy.
In essence a Facebook page should be viewed as a customisable presence for any business or organisation and therefore as another mechanism to raise awareness of a brand or service. The ‘Wall’ tab can be used as the central point for new information and new content where ‘fans’ can also contribute. ‘Fans’ in the business context are all potential advocates of your brand and should always be considered as such.
The tab structure of Facebook provides the facility to organise information in a structured way so topics like events, reviews and discussions can all be arranged in a way that is easy to navigate. Facebook, like other social networking sites, is all about creating a persona on the web, regardless of whether it is a ‘personal’ persona or a ‘business’ persona. One of the best ways to demonstrate your company’s personality is by using specific applications like the ‘extended info app’. This app allows you to create things like question and answer categories which can be created specifically for business purposes. The key to success is making the content topical, interesting, creative and accessible.
These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, however. The key message is to think creatively of how Facebook can be used as a business tool to attract viewers to your products and services through a communication medium that is easy on the eye, easy to navigate and easy to understand
Tube Mogul
If you are looking for an application to distribute your videos across your various social media sites then ‘TubeMogul’ is definitely worth a visit. In order to reap the benefits of this site you will firstly need to set up accounts with all your existing video sources and then link them into Tube Mogul. Once you have done that you can use the facility of TubeMogul to distribute your videos. So what exactly is Tube Mogul?
Basically Tube Mogul claims to be the first online “video analytics and distribution company” serving publishers who need independent information about video performance on the Internet. It also provides an automated upload to the top video sharing sites currently on the web including: YouTube, Vimeo, Blip TV, DailyMotion and Viddler.
Tube Mogul’s web site states that its analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers an improved understanding of when, where and how often their videos are watched. It also tracks and compares what’s hot and what’s not, measures the impact of marketing campaigns, gathers competitive intelligence, and enables the sharing of data with colleagues or friends.
In my next blog I’m going to take a look at two more useful social networking sites – Ping.fm and Postlater.com – until then, see you in cyberspace!
Don’t forget that if you want any further information on any of the above topics then please do get in touch. On The Go is already helping successful businesses implement their social networking strategies from helping them set up a consistent company profile through to scheduling their media messages giving them a 24/7 web presence.
